Microsoft’s real fight is with Apple’s iPad. It is running out of time to launch the next version of Surface. If sources are to be believed, Microsoft would be launching the next version of Surface tablets before Christmas this year.
Rumors are high that the new tablet will be called as Surface Plus. It will not be just one tablet but Microsoft will launch range of devices, with variety of screens sizes, HDD capacity and so on. The Surface Plus will be a 7-inch tablet giving tough competition to the devices like Google Nexus 7 and iPad mini. It will have range of newer technologies that includes NFC and LTE. Microsoft may use the high speed and low power 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. We could also see wireless charging as a new feature in Surface Plus. Rumors are also high that Surface Plus could include a 13.6-inch touch screen Ultrabook, which may not be like a tablet at all.
There were many problems reported by the Surface Pro users over the last couple of months and we hope Microsoft will overcome those problems in its new version of the Surface Plus tablet. The Surface Pro battery lasts only upto four hours and this causes lot of grief with the users. The normal iPad or even the Surface RT lasts almost for eight hours. No doubt the Surface Pro runs on Intel Core i5 that eats up lot of battery reducing the overall battery life to half that of other compatible devices. One also needs to look at the size of the battery. The overall weight of the device increases if larger battery is introduced. The balance will be between the size of the battery and the battery life which we believe Microsoft will bring-in in its Surface Plus tablet.

The Surface Pro with 64GB version gives only around 23GB of free space after the default softwares are installed which gives user only 36% of the device space to work with. The 128GB is slightly better which gives 85GB of storage space. Surface RT also has similar storage issues. Surface Plus is expected to ship with minimum of 128GB or bigger version to get out of such issues. Display is also another concern in Surface Pro which needs to be improved by Microsoft in Surface Plus.

So user’s wishlist increases from battery life to storage capacity, from CPU power improvement to screen resolution and glare-free screen, but we will have to wait and see how Microsoft’s Surface Plus will succeed in fulfilling those wishes and compete with other like-to-like devices available in the market. Price is also a concern and Office may be discontinued as a default application from Surface Plus to keep the price down.